Dancing is such a despised and dishonored trade that if you tell a doctor or a laywer you do choreography he’ll look at you as if you were a hummingbird.
AGNES DE MILLEWhen I dance I am really meditating rather then performing for an audience.
More Agnes de Mille Quotes
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To make up a dance, I still need, as I needed then, a pot of tea, walking space, privacy and an idea.
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Emily Dickinson provided four or more alternates for every word; Beethoven wrestled with endings to the point of exhaustion; in our day Jerome Robbins and his lack of decision are a byword in the dance profession.
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We can’t stand silence, because silence includes thinking. And if we thought, we would have to face ourselves.
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Theater people are always pining and agonizing because they’re afraid that they’ll be forgotten. And in America they’re quite right. They will be.
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I studied the way I danced- to the point of dropping.
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The choreographic process is exhausting. It happens on one’s feet after hours of work, and the energy required is roughly the equivalent of writing a novel and winning a tennis match simultaneously.
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Then I did the simplest thing in the world. I leaned down… and kissed him. And the world cracked open.
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Many other women have kicked higher, balanced longer, or turned faster. These are poor substitutes for passion.
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The universe lies before you on the floor, in the air, in the mysterious bodies of your dancers, in your mind.
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I had had to learn the difference between the bearable fatigue and the unbearable, the fatigue of fear. The first can be cured by a night’s sleep; the second kills.
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What I could not learn was to think creatively on schedule.
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What have we got here in America that we believe we cannot live without?
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Dancers aren’t made of their technique, but their passion.
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So that we will miss nothing. Partly it’s greed, but mainly its curiosity. We just want to experience it. And we do.
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Find the passion. It takes great passion and great energy to do anything creative. I would go so far as to say you can’t do it without that passion.
AGNES DE MILLE